Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of a
machine or a computer system to emulate human behavior
and to rival or surpass human intelligence and physical
abilities. To date, practical developments in artificial
intelligence have been concentrated in the areas of
deduction, reasoning, problem solving, knowledge,
planning, learning, natural language processing, motion
and manipulation, perception, social intelligence, and
creativity. The ultimate goal is to create artificial
general intelligence, the integration of the
aforementioned skills at levels of proficiency that meet
or exceed those of normal human abilities. Given the
rate at which computer processing capabilities are
improving, it is considered feasible that artificial
general intelligence can be achieved before 2050.

At present, no AI system has passed the classic Turing
test for intelligence in which a human evaluator
communicating with both an AI system and a human being
via text messages is unable to distinguish between the
responses of the human and the AI system. There are,
however, an increasing number of successful subject
matter Turing tests where computer systems are able to
independently solve specific problems in areas such as
chemistry, hand-writing recognition, and game-playing.
Significant AI advances have been made in motion and
manipulation: a biped robot has successfully navigated
stairs and a robot head is beginning to emulate human
facial expressions. Subject matter artificial
intelligence technology has found commercial
applications in medicine, stock trading, robotics, legal
applications, scientific research, the video game
industry, the toy industry, and internet search engines.

Futurists speculate that artificial general intelligence
will eventually reach a stage where it will be able to
improve itself at a rate which defies current
conception, a scenario that is called technological
singularity. Ethics for artificial intelligence are
being developed to address the moral and legal issues
that could arise if artificial general intelligence
gives rise to sentient entities with the ability to feel
pleasure and pain, potentially entitling them to same
rights as human beings. Researchers have theorized that
the continued development of AI will result in increased
productivity as well as greatly enhanced abilities and
entirely new avenues of human experience via human to
machine interfaces. It has been postulated that
artificial general intelligence will become a
significant factor in human evolution that will actively
shape the path of human destiny in future generations.